This invention relates generally to cooking appliances and more particularly to an outdoor barbecue grill of the type having both a spit and a rotary cooking grill.
A barbecue grill spit is typically turned by a motor at a uniform rate to promote uniform cooking of food on the spit. The rotary cooking grill, on the other hand, must usually be turned by hand. As a result, it is not turned as much as it should be during the cooking process to ensure uniform cooking. It will be noted in this connection that different parts of a barbecue fire burn at different temperatures (due, for example, to uneven burning of the fuel itself and to the intermittent drip of fat into various parts of the fire). Thus it is advantageous to turn the cooking grill frequently, and preferably constantly, to obtain a more uniform heating of the food on the grill. However, to do this by hand is so inconvenient as to be virtually impractical.
Efforts have been made to overcome this problem by providing a motor drive for the rotary grill. In this regard, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,298,301, 3,134,320 and 3,033,189 show several barbecue grills where the motor used to turn the spit is also used to rotate the cooking grill. However, in each case the drive mechanism used to rotate the cooking grill is relatively complex and requires numerous special parts, thus adding to the cost of the product and increasing its susceptibility to breakdown.